Does this apply to the university sector? Universities have a very high degree of institutional autonomy, which is a critical safeguard that protects academic freedom and research integrity. In return for this freedom, universities bear duties. Our ability to innovate and meet the needs of our society depends on nurturing the resources of the university sector wisely and well.

So it’s pretty important that those in charge of universities do their jobs well, and unless we assume they are both infallible and paragons of virtue, there needs to be accountability somewhere in the system. 

Holding universities accountable: the Commission and the councils

Who holds the universities to account? The current law provides for two main avenues of accountability: one via the universities’ annual reporting and funding agreements with the Tertiary Education Commission and the other via the council that each university is required to have. The law endows university councils with a lot of authority. Councils formally make or approve university decisions and internal policies (or delegate responsibility for them) on pretty much everything the university does as a corporate entity. Of course, the actual day to day running of a university is delegated to the Vice Chancellor, who is effectively the CEO. Councils have the critical responsibility of appointing the Vice Chancellor and holding that person to account for his or her management of the university.

This means it is a big deal who gets to be on the council and how they get to be there. What does the law say? Actually, not that much. The law says councils must have between 8 and 12 members, with 3 or 4 of these appointed by the minister. A few types of people are disqualified (undischarged bankrupts, for example) and a few types of people must be included: a student representative, two staff representatives (one academic, one non-academic) and at least one council member must be Māori. And there’s general language about needing to ensure representativeness, appropriate skills and experience, and ability to perform their duties as members.

Beyond that, the law basically leaves university councils to decide for themselves how they will operate. Section 279 of the Act says: ‘An institution’s council may make statutes relating to the appointment of members..’ Even the minister responsible for the universities needs to consult with the council before deciding on the 3 or 4 individuals he or she gets to appoint: Section 278(7) says that ‘Before making an appointment under this section, the Minister must seek, and consider, nominations from the relevant council.’

Council roles to be filled at the University of Auckland

So councils get to write their own statutes setting out how they appoint members. What do these statutes say? I’ll take the University of Auckland’s one as an example. Others may be different, but the University of Auckland is our country’s largest. It is also in the process of appointing four council members. And, because the current Vice Chancellor resigned only a few months after being reappointed by the current council, the council is tasked with the weighty responsibility of choosing a new Vice Chancellor over the coming months.

The council revised its procedures for appointing its own members three times in the last three years. Its 2023 statute sets out desirable qualities in council members and notes they can be appointed for a maximum of four years and a maximum of three times – so one could serve for up to 12 years. The statute says the Vice Chancellor is always a member of the council, by virtue of being Vice Chancellor. The statute also sets out the procedures for the election of staff and student representative members. There’s another document – made by the council – that gives a bit more detail on how exactly members get appointed or reappointed. This shows that the central role is played by something called the VCRERC – the Vice-Chancellor’s Review and Executive Remuneration Committee. This committee gets to specify what skills and experience members should have, before a call for expressions of interest in joining the council is made. The VCRERC also gets to view these expressions of interest and draw up a shortlist, to present to council, along with its recommendation. 

The powerholders answerable to.. themselves

Who is on the VCRERC? It is a committee of the council itself and comprises just four people: the Chancellor, who chairs the council, the pro-chancellor (effectively the deputy) and chairs of the council committees for finance and audit.

A look at its responsibilities shows that the VCRERC really is the centre of power on the council. As well as reviewing and recommending appointments or reappointments of council members, it also has the responsibility of ‘Reviewing and managing the performance, composition and succession of Council.’

What all this boils down to is that the council, the body charged with holding the university’s paramount manager, the Vice Chancellor, to account: a) includes the Vice Chancellor; b) determines for itself how it will operate; c) appoints and reappoints itself (with the exception of the 3 elected members and the minister’s appointees – but it gets to nominate ministerial appointees; d) reviews its own performance.

Managing conflicts of interest

All pretty cosy. There’s a cute provision for managing conflicts of interest in the appointment of council members: ‘If any member of VCRERC is a candidate for appointment as a Council member, that VCRERC member will not be present or participate in any part of the appointments process for the relevant position including the receipt and consideration of expressions of interest.’ So (for example), when considering the expressions of interest in positions that are currently vacant or up for reappointment, should the current Chancellor wish to be reappointed as the alumni member, she will excuse herself as a member of the VCRERC, which she has led since 2021, while the rest of the committee considers any competing expressions of interest received for the alumni role she currently fills on council. No problem at all.

Another quirk of the council appointments process is that the council’s appointments statute stipulates that the university’s Pro Vice-Chancellor (Māori), a member of the university’s executive team, ‘is to be invited to attend meetings of the VCRERC to assist the VCRERC… when the appointment of a Māori member is being considered.’ So the council member with particular responsibility for monitoring the university’s performance with respect to Māori interests – performance which is led by the Pro Vice-Chancellor (Māori) – is appointed on the advice of that same Pro Vice-Chancellor. Taken together, we may not have a chumocracy, but we surely have a system vulnerable to chumocracy and all the risks associated with it. Of course, everyone may be doing their job honourably and competently. Nothing I have written here suggests otherwise. But it’s a system that bears some similarities to what historian Peter Hennessy calls the ‘good chaps’ theory of British government. That’s a system that depends on everyone being a self-restrained good chap – which is to say, a system that is vulnerable to decay and capture.

Photo by Roberto Carlos Román Don on Unsplash

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Any edifice that rests on the shifting sands of contemporary academic fashion is bound sooner or later to fall. The university of the future will, paradoxically, need to offer its students an education with deeper historical roots

Ferguson and Howland

Compulsory Courses at the University of Auckland

The University of Auckland is set to deliver courses entitled ‘Waipapa Taumata Rau’. All students must complete a Waipapa Taumata Rau core course in their first year of study. 

The university website informs us that ‘Waipapa Taumata Rau’ is the Māori name gifted to the University of Auckland and that the relevant courses are called by this name to symbolize students’ aspirations as they seek to be a part of the University and to succeed in their studies. 

 “Designed to transition you into University life, your Waipapa Taumata Rau course provides knowledge vital to your studies and essential skills (like critical and ethical thinking, effective communication, and the ability to work well with others).

Each faculty course teaches you why place matters, introducing you to knowledge associated with the University, the wider city, this country, and its people and history, including Te Tiriti o Waitangi.

You’ll learn about different knowledge systems that underpin your area of study to provide a foundation for your future learning. Your Waipapa Taumata Rau core course will play a key role in shaping your first year of study with us.

Completion is required to progress into your second year of study where you will have opportunities to build on what you have learned.”

Some of the material does seem very relevant, especially critical and ethical thinking, effective communication and the ability to work well with others. Also positive is the discussion of knowledge associated with the University, the wider city, this country and its people and history, provided that a balanced picture of New Zealand’s history is encouraged.

However, we ask why all students must take such a course in order to progress into second year at a time when STEM courses are being cut. Why is Te Tiriti an enforced part of these courses but apparently not the New Zealand Constitution Act of 1852? Will the Constitution Act of 1986 be discussed, or other recent legislation?  

Knowledge Systems?

What exactly are the ‘knowledge systems’ that underpin students’ areas of study and that will provide a foundation for their future learning? How will these knowledge systems support electrical, civil and mechanical engineering, theoretical and experimental physics, pure mathematics, theoretical and applied statistics, organic and inorganic chemistry, evolutionary biology and cancer research? How will they assist in combatting malnutrition and infant and child mortality, clean energy technologies, efficient transportation and many other fields of endeavour?

Will students of forestry science at New Zealand universities be introduced to traditional medicine for restoration of kauri forests? One account of such medicine asserts  the “need to tune into the vibrations of the forest” and recommends burial of mauri stones within the affected areas, along with appropriate rituals? Will students be taught that sperm whale oil embodies healing properties for kauri? Will they be encouraged to “send out a call to the world, asking communities to hold special ceremony on behalf of kauri” and “invite the world to Aotearoa to join us in prayer and ceremony in the initiation of our future Rongoā interventions.”? In that account we are told:

“Through listening and traditional meditation in the forest, will assist those to align to the cellular frequency of the forest and to become more enlightened in the work of looking after the forest.”  

Will students of agriculture learn that farmers should manage their farms on the basis of the phases of the moon, when in reality the lunar cycle has no effect whatsoever on plant growth or physiology?

If the thinking behind such traditional knowledge is taken as an allegory for loving and caring for the natural world and its living environments, then something wonderful has indeed been gifted to us. But if such beliefs are accorded the status of literal truth then we have the makings of a very serious problem in tertiary education.

In New Zealand, what about the approximately 25% of tertiary students who are non-Māori/non-European? Will their knowledge systems be presented too? Will the international students who are forced to take these courses consider their fees to be money well spent?

Today in various countries we hear demands for decolonization of mathematics. For example, Rowena Ball claims that mathematics has been gate-kept by the West, defined to exclude entire cultures and that almost all mathematics that students have ever come across is European-based. Among others, she wants to enrich the discipline through the inclusion of cross-cultural mathematics. However, Sergiu Klainerman responds as follows:

“If mathematics was in fact a cultural artifact, like music, literature or the arts, it would be impossible to explain its extraordinary effectiveness in the physical sciences, weather prediction, engineering or artificial intelligence.“

We agree with Professor Klainerman. Further, we believe that both science and mathematics transcend all political, cultural, ethnic and religious frontiers.

A Core Curriculum?

Today, readings at many universities in the Western world cover “progressive preoccupations” that include anti-colonialism, sex and gender, antiracism and climate. Surely, there is great merit in dialogue and action on such issues but it is critical that students’ readings are diverse rather than comprising only the perspectives of the contemporary left.

Ferguson and Howland tell us that if students are to become active and reflective individuals, they must learn to regard the past not merely as the crime scene of bygone ages, but as the record of human possibilities – an always unfinished tapestry of both admirable and shameful lives and both noble and base deeds. They must develop an ear for the English language and the language of ancestral wisdom, as well as the various languages of intellectual inquiry, including mathematics. They need a good grasp of modern statistical methods and they must also allow themselves to be inwardly-formed and cultivated by the classics.

They suggest that a sound foundation would also require an introduction to the modes of cognition, including intellectual and moral intuition and scientific demonstration. Aristotle, informal logic and Karl Popper would introduce students to the “preeminently learnable and knowable things.”

Will Students Vote with their Feet?

The perceptions of international students that New Zealand is indigenizing its degrees could lead to a significant loss of international enrolments and reduced credibility of our universities. The motive of preparing students to be effective learners is laudable, but is it strictly necessary to demand of them to assimilate these systems in order to progress in their other studies?

If the academic and political initiatives relating to these courses were truly about preparing students for university studies, then perhaps they should take the form of preparatory courses, possibly available online, before students begin their degrees. In the United States, for example, many universities provide future students access to “Cornerstone” courses in order to prepare them for assessment on writing, reasoning, research and literacy.  

Any mandatory belief-based curriculum amounts to indoctrination and should have no place in our universities. In a competition amongst the universities for fee-paying students and Government funding, will universities that insist on such courses see their enrolments fall, as students go to wherever they are not forced to pay for indoctrination?

Dr David Lillis trained in physics and mathematics at Victoria University and Curtin University in Perth, working as a teacher, researcher, statistician and lecturer for most of his career. He has published many articles and scientific papers, as well as a book on graphing and statistics. 

An earlier version of this article was first published at Breaking Views

Cover image by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash

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